(ORDO NEWS) — Scientists conducted a major study, which found an unexpected link between refusal of the COVID-19 vaccine and getting into road traffic accidents (RTCs).
According to the authors of the study, the increased risk of accidents among the unvaccinated was on par with the risk faced by people with sleep apnea.
The study analyzed data from 11,270,763 people, 16 percent of whom had not been vaccinated against COVID-19.
The team then looked at data from emergency care facilities in Ontario, Canada, where an accident resulted in hospitalization, and took into account a number of factors such as age and health status.
“Simply activating immunity against coronavirus, for example, has no direct effect on road behavior or car accident risk,” the research team wrote.
“Instead, we hypothesized that individual adults who tend to resist public health advice may also be flouting basic road safety rules.”
Of course, data has shown that unvaccinated people are at greater risk of being involved in road accidents than people who have received the COVID-19 vaccine.
Although they make up 16 percent of the people tested, the unvaccinated accounted for 25 percent of road accidents (requiring hospitalization).
After adjusting for factors such as home location, socioeconomic status and other medical conditions, they found that the unvaccinated had a 48 percent increased risk of being involved in a car accident.
“The increased risk of road accidents among unvaccinated individuals was distributed across different subgroups [and] was similar to the relative risk associated with sleep apnea,” the scientists added.
The risk was higher than in diabetics, although lower than in people who drive while intoxicated.
The authors note that they cannot assert causality because the study did not look at the causes of vaccine hesitancy or risky driving. However, they offered several possible explanations for the correlation.
The team also notes that the study was limited in that they could only consider accidents that resulted in hospitalization.
However, they concluded that “the findings suggest that unvaccinated adults should be careful indoors with other people and outdoors while driving.”
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